Use Advertising To Increase Social Media Exposure

Social media is changing online advertising from a passive medium where business speak, and consumers passively listen, to a more interactive process. The challenge for businesses is the time it takes to manage that interactivity. Another concern that businesses have is that as soon as you open yourself up to more consumer feedback, you are opening yourself up to negative feedback that is viewable by the public. Before embarking on a social media advertising campaign, make sure you know what you are doing and you are willing to put the time into managing the campaign. As rule you or someone on your team, needs to budget at least 1 hour per day to managing your social media accounts. If you don’t have that time, it is a good idea to hire a freelancer.

Which social media outlet?

There are new social media apps and websites coming online line all the time. If you want to know what the hottest is right now, ask your teenager. For business though, there are four main outlets where paid advertising have proven to be the most effective; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. If you are just starting out in social media, Facebook is the place to start. 68% of all college graduates in the United State use Facebook in some way. LinkedIn is a good way to contact other professionals, but it’s advertising can be expensive so to start, Facebook is the most cost effective place to go. You should also be looking at what your competition is doing.

Why advertise on social media?

Social media sites and apps like Facebook are a directly link to your customer. If they follow your account, every time you post a notice that you have a new product, or you are running a sale, or anything, that information is fed directly to them. Since most social media users are accessing the sites form their phones, the information received is instantaneous. Imaging running an event and not having to spend a penny on promoting it. People just start showing up.

The challenge is, when you are just starting out, you don’t have any followers so you can post to Facebook or Twitter, but no one is receiving your information. This is where advertising comes in. All social media sites sell the ability to push your content onto their potential customer’s timelines, even if they are not following you.

The best think about social media advertising is the customers themselves. Social media users share everything about themselves without ever really thinking about it. For example, I tend to share photographs that I have taken on hikes. So, Facebook knows that I enjoy hiking and photography so they may push ads onto my timeline for companies that sell products or services to customers with those interests. You can really focus your advertising, maximizing your return on investments.

Content is everything.

Paid advertising or not, you are going to need quality content to post on social media. Here are some pointers.

Write some blog posts for your website and post those to your social media outlets. Bottom-line, you need something to post before you can post it. I have other articles within this blog to help you with ideas on the type of content you should be creating for your site. Once you have content, now you can pay to promote those which will lead to more visitors to your social media page, and more visitors to your website.

Spend the time to create beautiful imagery to go with your content. Paying to promote your content doesn’t mean users will click on it. When I am browsing social media, I find that I tend to click more on posts that not only call to me with a compelling headline, but also contain an image that looks interesting.

Video content is even better at attracting clicks. A larger and large share on the content on the Internet is turning to video. People don’t read anymore.

It is important to set goals.

Advertising on social media is simply paying to get greater exposure for the information you are posting, so have preset goals for the advertising is important. You need to define success before you start. Your goals will help determine the content you generate, the social media outlet you use, and the amount you are willing to spend.

For assistance with social media advertising or general social media questions, feel free to contact me at Pacific iWorks, (808) 330-9606 or click here to get a quote on your next project.